I recently spent some time going through all of my music. I was amazed at all of the albums I loved when I was younger but haven't listened to in years. I loaded them up on my iOS devices and the memory in my car and have been rocking hard ever since. It's like I am 13 all over again. I swear they still hit me the same way and perhaps more so because of the memories of rocking to them ages ago.

Here's a few from my list. What are yours?

Silverchair - Frogstomp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frogstomp)
1995 release so I was 15. The riffs were catchy but simple enough for me to learn on my own. I loved Daniel John's vocals and the guitar tone which I believe was primarily PRS and Soldano, a combo I rocked later in life for some time. These chaps were my age when this album was released which was certainly part of the appeal. I never liked a thing they did after this, go figure.

Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_You_Been)
Go listen to "Get Me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEIslMePVp4)", which is from this album, and witness the greatness that is J. 4:05 marks the start of my favorite guitar solo ever. There was no stopping Mascis on this song. 3-4 solos and they are all super tasty. I loved Dinosaur Jr. so much I wanted to be J. Mascis. I even invented a nickname for myself that when inevitably shortened would leave me being called J. It stuck and my close friends still just call me J. This is the stuff that makes total sense at 13. Purple Marshall stacks, dirt pedals, Jazz Masters, cows, aliens, awesomeness.

Soundgarden - Superunknown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superunknown)
I was 14. I still remember talking my mom into driving an hour to the closest place that I knew would have this album on release today. My mom was pretty supportive, <3 YOU MOM, so she took the time to get me out there. She even let me rock the cassette on the way home. She must have thought I was possessed cause I was entranced listening to that record for the first time.

Napalm Death - Fear, Emptiness, Despair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_Emptiness,_Despair)
Another release that hit when I was 14. I think 13-15 was a pretty important time for me musically cause most of these records are from that period. I grew up in rural southern Illinois so I lived in guitar and music magazines as my connection to the outside world. I remember reading a one pager about Napalm Death's Jesse Pintado (RIP) and thinking he was so cool cause he had the same name as me, he had a pet rabbit with him in the picture and I had rabbits, and he was talking about a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier which was totally the new deal back then. He said he put the bass on 10, middle on 0 and treble on 5. Guess how I dialed in the first Recto I played? Yep, horri-bad. I didn't care though cause the 4x12 had side armor and it made up for the muddy tone.

:rock::rock::rock:

LSchefman

02-19-2013, 06:56 PM

I've recently revisited:

John Coltrane, "A Love Supreme"

Traffic, "John Barleycorn"

Blind Faith, "Blind Faith"

Pentangle, "Basket of Light"

Circus Maximus, "Circus Maximus"

veinbuster

02-19-2013, 09:36 PM

And while ago I digitized all my vinyl and have been playing through it.
The real stand out of the bunch is Robbie Robertson's first solo album.

garrett

02-20-2013, 12:06 PM

I still love the Frogstomp album. Also Extreme: Pornografitti and Steve Vai: Passion and Warfare are perennial favorites. I wore out both of those cassettes when I was a kid. I still remember the moment when the Extreme tape was severely wounded. I was in the middle of mowing the lawn when my walkman ate it and the tape broke. I was crushed, so I took the cassette apart and put the tape back together with scotch tape. :biggrin:

Not too long ago I finally got a digital copy of Arc Angels. That was a great band/album to rediscover. It was a favorite of mine on cassette, so I probably went at least a decade without hearing it.

I will still contend that Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood Sugar Sex Magik is one of the best albums ever made, period. I remember it seemed so profane that my brother, my friends and I didn't want our parents to know we were listening to it.

garrett

02-20-2013, 12:09 PM

I remember hating the Superunknown album (except "Fell on Black Days"). I do have a copy of it though (my wife had it before we met). Might have to give it a fresh listen.

themike

02-20-2013, 12:10 PM

http://youtu.be/l8BRbM52gpc

This album changed my life.... seriously.

frankb56

02-20-2013, 01:09 PM

A lot hard rockers out there. Although I admit to listening to Metallica, Zep, and even Anthrax (no, I'm not Frank Bello the bass player), my preference has always been the likes of Clapton, Santana, Pat Metheny. I really like what the Black Keys are doing these days and a really cool new blues album by Ben Harper with Charlie Mussel Whit is a keeper.

dmorton67

02-20-2013, 02:37 PM

UFO - Strangers in the Night. played record that until the vinyl couldn't take it any more.

Albrecht Smuten

02-21-2013, 06:30 AM

Recently I started to listen to Jethro Tull again, after about 10 years. More recently Nirvana's "School" just popped in my head (that's like 15 years ago) and I can't get it out since.
Now I'm contemplating making a medley of Nirvana - Porcupine Tree - Jethro Tull with my band (we're only doing one cover song so far).

veinbuster

02-21-2013, 07:09 AM

Alan Parson's Project: Eve

CoreyT

02-21-2013, 07:37 AM

Grand Funk I listed to on vinyl when it came out back in the 70s.
I was listening to a few songs on YouTube yesterday when I saw this thread, and they have the whole album up that I had.
I may have to go to Amazon and get some MP3s of theirs.

Their music was simple hard driven rock.
I remember playing Paranoid on my Vox/Thomas Organ company Wa-Wa pedal back around '73 or so.

CoreyT

02-21-2013, 08:00 AM

OK, this is weird.
I am listening to the album now, and I have not heard it since the 70s, yet I can sing along with it as I know most of the words to the songs :D
Funny how you can remember stuff like this from so long ago :D

Texas_minor_blues

02-21-2013, 06:20 PM

This album changed my life, It is the reason I picked up the guitar

http://youtu.be/7xxgRUyzgs0

And then there came Eric....

http://youtu.be/15eu7ar5EKM

Bill SAS 513

02-22-2013, 06:19 AM

I guess they would be the albums that are constantly rotated in and out of vehicle CD player rotation for old times' sake...I have a case that holds 10-12 CDs in my car and rotate pretty much monthly...and there's always the following...at least one of each: Queen (I or Sheer Heart Attack or News of the World), Styx (Pieces of Eight,Equinox, Grand Illusion), Floyd (Animals, Wish U were here, The Wall), Rush (Moving Pictures, Fly By Night, Clockwork Angels), and in recent years, David Grissom (Loud Music), and Shinedown's latest (Amaryllis)

jfb

02-26-2013, 10:15 AM

After reading the NIN / Adrian Belew news I went and grabbed these albums from the archives to put in today's rotation.

Jars of Clay - Self Titled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jars_of_Clay_(album))
Released in 1995. For some reason this album mesmerizes me. Until today I bet I haven't listened to this in 7+ years easy and I'd still rate this as the second most listened to album in my collection. Crushingly heavy stuff at times. I never got into anything they released after this except for a few singles that were similar in style and sound. I thought they had something going but they shifted sounds big time.

NIN - The Downward Spiral (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Downward_Spiral)
Released in 1994. I was already a big fan of NIN when this came out. The Downward Spiral has to have the most play of any music in my collection. This was the album that changed how I looked at creating. Hugely important release for me. I believe it was Trent's magnum opus. I have wained on them a bit, likely more my tastes changing then anything else, but still buy all of NIN's releases without much hesitation.

Preface this with saying I had an older cousin who got me into plenty of 80's rock starting at about the age of 7 or 8?? He had a massive collection of tapes then...later on he started listening to nothing but country and that's where I stopped following his musical taste. I can appreciate it now and enjoy the guitar players mostly but country and/or western isn't my thing. Except Johnny Cash.

I'd say 2 that REALLY stick out from when I real young are GnR -Appetite for Destruction and Beastie Boys - License To Ill
...they were both pretty revolutionary departures from the norm.

Early 90's were prominent when I was first writing a lot...
AIC - Facelift, SAP, Dirt
Pearl Jam - Ten & Vs.
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger...I didn't like Superunknown til a few years after release
Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking and Ritual
STP - Core, Purple
The Black Crowes - 1st 3 albums
Tool- Opiate & Undertow
Ozzy - No rest for the wicked, No More Tears
Metallica - the black album(although I was into them well before)
Pantera - Cowboys & Vulgar
Primus - because they were weird, left field and awesome

One band I'd like to note is Last Crack - the album "Burning Time" came out in '91, it was almost a prog version of early 90's transitioning 80's to an Alice In Chains style rock. Paul Schluter was a VERY early PRS player in '85 and is actually how I learned about them for the most part. He worked in a local music store when they weren't on tour and I bought my 1st PRS from him and another guy at the store. Influential to me personally. Here's is '85:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8452/7904041162_2976bb57fe_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8304/7904042394_0f6f5d9a67_b.jpg

Being in high school and band dudes we were all into Zep, Floyd, Doors, Hendrix, Rush, Tull, some U2 - but the list above was pretty prominent in my early playing days. Good memories and I still listen to a lot of those albums quite a bit...more recently as I get OLDer...and think a lot of new music SUCKS:p

jfb

03-01-2013, 10:01 PM

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8452/7904041162_2976bb57fe_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8304/7904042394_0f6f5d9a67_b.jpg

Great albums on your list.

That guitar is SO SO SO sick. :adore::adore::adore:

vchizzle

03-06-2013, 11:44 AM

I know.....I wish it was mine!

QueenCityGuitars

03-06-2013, 01:02 PM

I started listening to hard rock music when I was young. It was KISS (Alive and Alive II) that started me down the path. Then it was AC/DC (High Voltage, Highway to Hell, and Back in Black), Van Halen (I, II, Women and Children First, and Fair Warning) and Ozzy (Blizzard of Ozz, Diary of a Madman, and Speak of the Devil). After that the flood gates opened (Sabbath, Priest, and Maiden). Then in my teens, when the hair metal days started, I went through a classic rock phase listening to The Beatles (Sgt. Pepper - Abbey Road), Led Zeppelin (I - Physical Graffiti), and Pink Floyd (Meddle - The Wall). The combination of classic metal and classic rock is probably why I liked Alice in Chains (Facelift - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here), Soundgarden (Louder Than Love - King Animal), and Tool (Ænima - 10,000 Days) during the '90s. I still listen to all of those records regularly.

mad monk

03-06-2013, 10:09 PM

Wow, I feel really old seeing what some of you say you were listening to in your "youth". Old stuff that I'm revisiting includes Black Oak Arkansas, Blind Faith, and the neglected Black Sabbath albums. Alice Cooper, Uriah Heep, and Traffic are there, too.
I'm so glad that I'm listening to Foghat again. It's just great freakin' music. Too bad most people's opinion of them is based on one song.

jfb

03-06-2013, 10:30 PM

Wow, I feel really old seeing what some of you say you were listening to in your "youth". Old stuff that I'm revisiting includes Black Oak Arkansas, Blind Faith, and the neglected Black Sabbath albums. Alice Cooper, Uriah Heep, and Traffic are there, too.
I'm so glad that I'm listening to Foghat again. It's just great freakin' music. Too bad most people's opinion of them is based on one song.

First album I ever owned was Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll. I still get chills rocking that one. It's just so damn heavy.

vchizzle

03-11-2013, 01:07 AM

I listened to a ton of Sabbath. I can't recall exactly when, maybe around that same time. They were one of my faves. I got heavy into Zep and Hendrix when I first moved out of my parents. I bought the box sets as they came out so I would have and know everything they did. For the life of me, I don't get why they didn't release them in original album format that 1st time:(
I spent hours upon hours listening to that catalog over and over at my 1st apartment - good times.

veinbuster

03-11-2013, 06:03 PM

I took a listen of Robin Trower - In City Dreams yesterday. The title track might be my least favourite on the album (yes it is vinyl), but I love the vocal and guitar phrasing.

jfb

03-12-2013, 06:23 PM

Since I started this thread I have been going through my music collection and grabbing stuff I haven't listened to in ages. Recent releases have kept me occupied but today I rocked out to an oldie as I drove around town completing my errands.

The Lemonheads - It's A Shame About Ray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Shame_About_Ray)
Released in 1992. I had this album well before I started playing guitar and fondly remember rocking out as I mowed lawns in the summer. I mean come on, Juliana Hatfield played bass and sang backup vocals! This album reminds me that songs need to breath. I feel like I hear lots of what I would call rock music where the guitars have enough gain to be metal. It cramps up the songs and they suffocate. Anyways, Track 4 - Rudderless. Awesome.

sergiodeblanc

03-12-2013, 06:33 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=673E0RyDYOo

veinbuster

03-16-2013, 08:46 AM

Parts of the album are week, but Mad Cats was worth the price just for Teenage Valentino.

And, amazingly, my 3rd album ever...listened to once, in 1967...and never listened to again! Hey...I was 12 years old, on a limited budget, and this was on sale for $1.99 at Alexander's Dept. Store...a momentary diversion, never to be repeated:

Note...all albums bought NEW, shortly upon release, which clearly dates me as being older than dirt.

DM426

03-17-2013, 01:30 PM

Back in Black
The Wall
Bark at the Moon

Em7

03-17-2013, 01:46 PM

Heart - debut album & Little Queen
Foreigner - debut album & Double Vision
Led Zepplin - I, II, IV, and Houses of the Holy
Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive! (don't laugh)
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors (I purchased the album before the cover was changed after the crash)
Van Halen - I & II
Pink Floyd - Animals and Dark Side of the Moon
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
REO Speedwagon - Live: You Get What You Play For
Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage

Jon van derlim

03-21-2013, 09:04 AM

The Cult Sonic Temple- a well over looked rock classic
U2 The Joshua Tree- one of the best albums ever made

Reign In Blood by Slayer is one of my favorites as well. Angel of Death is so brutal! \m/

While I understand Kirk Hammett isn't the best lead player, his first solo on Fade to Black is what made me want to play guitar. Its the first song I learned and I still love it.
http://ghettoblastermagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/11metallica-ride-the-lightning.jpg

Marty Friedman's leads on Rust in Peace changed my life. Still gets plenty of play time.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518hnO5psGL._SL500_SS500_.jpg

Both of these albums by Pink Floyd. Amazing stuff. I know, I know, but the solo from Comfortably Numb just gives my the chills every time.